Hulu taps viral Instagram egg for mental health PSA after Super Bowl

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Dive Brief:

The viral Instagram account @world_record_egg teamed with nonprofit Mental Health America for a 30-second PSA about "cracking up" due to the pressures of social media. The spot aired on Hulu following the Super Bowl on Feb. 3, according to TechCrunch.

There was speculation that the "reveal" may occur during Hulu's 30-second Super Bowl ad, but the company ran a full-length trailer for season three of its popular series "The Handmaid's Tale."

Dive Insight:

After building buzz about a possible partnership with Hulu, the massively popular Instagram account featuring a plain stock image of a single egg teamed with a nonprofit for a message about the dangers social media poses to mental health. It remains to be seen if the account will exclusively focus on mental health, or if this was a one-off partnership. The account initially reached out to Mental Health America for the partnership, according to tweets by the nonprofit.

Linking with a social media phenomenon, such as the egg, underscores how competitive the video streaming market is growing, especially as the rate of cord-cutting consumers continues to rise. Last year, Hulu rival Netflix announced that it would increase its marketing spending by 54% from $1.3 billion to $2 billion and invest about $8 billion on original programming in 2018. Hulu appears to be following suit as a Super Bowl advertiser for the third straight year. Past campaigns around the big game have also focused on original programming, which has been a major draw for subscribers to Hulu and other streaming platforms.

Hulu has also been rolling out new advertising offerings to grow its revenue stream and attract brand dollars. The platform recently announced that Coca-Cola and Procter & Gamble's Charmin will pilot its new "pause ads" format, which are expected to debut in Q2. The ads activate five seconds after users hit the pause button, and are static, contain short messages and images, and appear on a translucent background. Hulu plans to test audience reactions to the experiment for 90 to 120 days after the launch.

The platform has reportedly been testing performance-based measurements for brands to better understand how many customers purchased products, downloaded an app or signed up for more information after seeing a Hulu ad. The ad product will match advertisers' customer relationship data to its campaign exposure data to give advertisers more granular data on the viewers watching ad-supported content. Hulu is also partnering with Amazon to make the streaming service available on the Alexa-powered Echo Show, and Alexa users are watching 50% more TV since they can access shows with voice commands.